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Click Tip - Archive: April 2013

Click Tip - Tuesday, April 30th, 2013 - 5 PPC Time Saving Tools

Maintaining PPC accounts can be pain staking for business owners who know that time is equal to money. Thankfully there are tools available that make the process less tedious. If you're focused on efficiency, here are the tools and features we'd recommend.

AdWords Editor

Google AdWords editor is a desktop application that allows paid search managers to make batch changes to their campaigns. It's particularly time saving when tweaking, or overhauling ad group structure. What makes AdWords editor so great, is the flexibility it provides in making bulk changes. AdWords editor allows managers to copy and paste ad elements like keywords, negative keywords, and ad text, across multiple ad groups or campaigns.

Scheduled Reports

Using the scheduled reports feature of AdWords is a great way to save time. The schedule reports feature generates and delivers key reports to a specified email inbox. By scheduling reports, anyone can monitor PPC performance and review metrics without having to login to AdWords.

Automated Rules
AdWords automated rules can be used to execute tedious and repetitive PPC tasks like increasing a bids on all keywords as ROI rises. The more tasks that you can link to rules, the more automated your campaign can be. Any automated changes that are made can later be reviewed in the AdWords changes log.

Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Excel can be the ultimate time saver in any paid search campaign. Excel allows paid searchers the flexibility of making bulk changes quickly, as well as the organization of having all the essential data for decision making in one spreadsheet. For Bing Ad campaigns, we've found that Excel to be a far more efficient tool than Bing Ads Editor.

Creating effective AdWords ad copy can be tough, and to be successful its extremely important that you're strategic about the process. Here are three essentials that you should keep in mind when crafting your ad copy.

Target your message
The first question you should ask yourself when preparing ad copy is, who am I targeting? Your ad copy should always be tailored to the keywords that are triggering your ads. To do this, you’ll want to split your keywords into numerous ad groups, each with its own theme. This organization will allow you to write ads with specific searchers in mind. The more relevant your ad copy is to the keywords your advertising on, the more likely consumers are to click through and visit your webpage.

Stand Apart
Let’s face the facts, you’re not the only one bidding on your keywords. Searchers looking for your product or service are going to have their choice of which listing to click. So what grabs their attention? Without a unique message, you won’t be able to set your brand apart from the competition. When crafting ad copy, always use the keywords that are triggering your ads, but go above and beyond and set yourself apart. Do some research and observe how your competitors advertise on specific themes or products. With this in mind, think of some ways you can differentiate and stand out from the crowd.

Call to Action
Think about what it is that you want searchers to do when they see your ad. It could be that you want them to download information, call you for assistance, or buy directly from your webpage. Whatever it is, by calling your audience to take a specific action, your ads are more likely to convert.

Maintaining a Google AdWords campaign of any size can be time consuming, and a struggle when you’re a business owner with many other responsibilities on your hand. Every account is different, but below are our suggestions on how to eliminate wasteful spend and make sure you're allocating your time and budget wisely.

Adding negative keywords
A quick way to find negative keywords is to look at your AdWords search query report, and review your recent matched search queries. This report reveals to you the searches that have been triggering your ads. When reviewing the report, ask yourself if your offer is relevant to the keywords that were searched. If you see any search phrases that don't match your product offering, mark them down and add them as negative keywords. Adding negative keywords will cut wasteful spend by raising your click-through rate and quality score.

Tweaking underperforming broad keywords
Another quick campaign fix that can be made to cut wasteful spend, is tweaking broad keywords that are underperforming. Advertisements on broad keywords often receive many impressions, and if those impressions aren't generating clicks, your declining click-through rate will increase your overall advertising cost. When advertising on broad match keywords, we recommend paying close attention to performance, and controlling their impressions through negative keywords. After tweaking, if the keyword still isn't delivering, consider changing match types or deleting it all together.

Turning your display network off
Save yourself some money by ensuring your ads are showing to Google's search network only, and not to its display network. Your campaigns click-through rate and targeting will be healthier when your ads are showing only to Google searchers that you can actually target. With Google's display network enabled, your ads will be shown to thousands of web surfers who typically aren't even looking to buy anything, and are ultimately harder to convert. If you've got Google's display network enabled, turning it off can quickly and dramatically slash wasteful spend.

Perhaps you’ve heard in the past that broad match keywords will drive your quality score into the ground by generating irrelevant and expensive clicks. The truth however is that with the proper constraints, broad keywords can bolster the strength of your overall PPC campaign.

Greater Traffic Potential
Broad match keywords have great potential and can result in more visitors to your landing pages. Ads on broad match keywords will show to a larger variety of searchers than those on exact and phrase match keywords, and the looser criteria will result in more ad impressions.

Keyword Exploration
Broad match keywords can also be great for keyword expansion. Broad match keywords sprinkled through-out your campaign, paired with the Google AdWords Keyword Search Terms report, can lead you to some fresh keywords that you may never have thought to advertise on.

You Have Control
We’re not suggesting that you let broad keywords dominate your AdWords PPC mix, but that when used properly, and in combination with negative keywords and broad match modifiers, you shouldn’t be afraid of using them.

So you’ve been monitoring your AdWords campaigns and have discovered some particularly low click-through rates. Part of this could be that click spammers, searchers who click on your ads solely to deplete your budget, are attacking your account. So, what's the most effective way of fighting back? If you've signed up for a ClickReport account, it's simple.

Use ClickReport Live Email Alerts
The first step is to configure your live ClickReport email alerts so we can provide you with the IP addresses of those suspected of draining your AdWords budget. After you've set your thresholds, and have received the IP address of a perpetuator, copy it and proceed to the next step to exclude it.

Exclude the IP Address in AdWords
Next, to prevent future attacks, you must exclude the IP address in AdWords. To do this, Sign in to your Google AdWords account and click on the campaigns tab. Next click the settings tab, and select the campaign you’d like to exclude IP addresses from. Under advanced settings page, click IP exclusions. Next click Edit which is next to Manage IP Exclusions. Paste the IP Address. Finally, click Save.